Our society must be equal to the threats ahead

lauriemacdonell-sanchez

Excellent article. What are the odds the general public of the West will pull its drug-fogged collective head out of the sandpile of "celebrity headlines & trivia" long enough to perceive that the dangers are real & not the ranting of conspiracy theorists or right-wing damagogues, as they've been brainwashed into believing? Such as they are, current leaders of the UK & US aren't about to shore up our defenses, enhance our cournterintelligence capabilities or actively protect our civilization because they are socialists, & as such it has been their intention all along to lure the West down the cowardly path of accommodation to inevitable capitulation to our worst enemies, one of more recent vintage (Russia) & another of very old vintage indeed, jihadist Islam.

Nicholas Storey

There is no doubt that effective provision for the close defence of the islands is of major importance. But I know
that many thinking people doubt the point of sending British troops off, first to finish Daddy Bush's unfinished business on any old bent pretext; later sought to be justified as introducing 'democracy' to Iraq or of trawling the mountains of Afghanistan to rout the
people relied upon (fairly recently) to keep the Russians out of Afghanistan; especially bearing in mind that they are clandestine and hide in difficult places - moving around, as they do now, to avoid capture. Moreover, if the majority of the British people are as vacuous and uninterested in their fate as you suggest, the question must arise as to the nature of the society at risk.

Robert Morton

Liam Fox is a member of the parliamentary "opposition" and as such, together with the rest of the Tory Party, he gave a standaing ovation to Tony Blair. Blair took us into the Iraq war on the basis of a pack of lies. Labour sent troops to Afghanistan on the basis that not a shot would be fired. (John Reid, Defense Secretary) After many soldiers have been killed and an unknown number mutilated (secret of course, like secret family courts, secret terrorist courts etc)the Conservative "opposition" still supports both wars. Well, there's lots of money in it isn't there. A few hundred dead British soldiers has earned Tony millions so how much will Liam and David Cameron earn for all their "liberal" wars. Three liberal parties, all in the "centre ground", all lying to and thieving from the British people. Whenever I see an article written by a member of the House of Liars, I refuse to read it. Members of parliament are the real threat to our country.

Merlyn

Thank you Liam for your excellent article.
It is well past the time of appeasement or indeed blaming Israel.
As you say, there are a growing number of Islamic fundamentalists who do not like our way of life and now seek to continue Mohamed's conquest for Islam how ever many this kills.
Wake up Britain [and Europe]!

Nicholas Storey

Merlyn - I remember The Sun headline after one of the IRA bombings of London: it read "Irish Bastards". Thios struck me as especially ignorant at the time for any number of obvious reasons and caused many Irish people living and working in London at the time to feel: dismay at the injustice; fear of the result and a sense of unjustified shame. The ignorant bigot who wrote this banner and the many ignorant bigots who conspired in its production all shared the same general prejudice which is evident from your entry here. Muslims at large are no more generally resposible for the acts of a handful of madmen hiding behind a front of purported religious excuse than JC is responsible for the RC-Anglican rifts and the terrorism in Northern Ireland. Maybe the people of the world need to bring themselves closer together rather than driving each other further apart and this means that people like you are better off staying in your caves.
NJS

Nicholas Storey

I should also add to my last post here that the threats from within, namely the disintegration of the social and economic bases of British society are at least as pressing as the threats from outside and yet no one seems to dare to address these issues for fear of offending the increasingly ignorant and uneducated masses - why? - because they are the punters who vote you in. So, together with all the rest of it, political cowardice, evidenced by the toothless consensual politics of the age, is also there as a threat - especially to Liberty - as the law-abiding majority is over-regulated to give a semblance of some control in an increasingly violent and uncontrollable climate.
NJS

Mark Ribbands (Malaysia)

Mr Fox suggests that Iran succeeding in developing nuclear weapons technology would lead to the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah being ‘able to make a dirty bomb’. What confused rubbish; and worrying rubbish from a man in his position.

A so-called dirty bomb is merely a radioactive source stuck to a charge of conventional high explosive. It’s a piece of pudding to make: I could develop one in my kitchen this afternoon should I so wish. But my kitchen does not have room for all the centrifuges for anything more ambitious, and sourcing plutonium would be a bugger.

Mr Fox does make the distinction between this mickey-mouse bit of devilry and a proper nuclear weapon three paragraphs later, so the confusion is doubly puzzling.

Any irregular organisation which has access to high explosives, must surely be able to nick the odd radioactive source. These are generally much less well locked-up than high explosives are. Consider the thousands of sources there are in hospital radio-therapy departments. These are not particularly well-secured places, and are generally highly vulnerable to armed attack.

Furthermore, any rogue state would have immediate access to such sources.

A dirty bomb is in essence the ideal ‘terrorist’ weapon: easy to make, transport and conceal. It might require a suicidal bomber to carry the thing about, due to the irradiation he would receive, but as we all know, such people exist. The bomb doesn’t actually do that much damage - it doesn’t need to - but would cause widespread fear, indeed terror, due mainly to the public’s lack of knowledge of nuclear matters.

So why have there been no dirty bombs to date? I suggest it is because we still do, thankfully, hold a big enough stick. Although that said, I am in support of Mr Fox’s assertion that even bigger sticks are useful, and certainly support their acquisition.

These people are not stupid. They know that the result of ‘going nuclear’ would be to justify and enable a response terrifying to behold, with, most importantly, full public backing.

Although that backing would no doubt come from the widespread confusion between dirty bombs and real nuclear weapons, so perhaps that’s a good thing after all.